This invention relates to a system for the supply of multi-transaction services, such as a financial services systems, a retail services system, or a communications system. The common factor is that each system is transaction-intensive and channel-specific, i.e. provides a substantial number of simultaneous service transactions through service-specific hardware and software channels.
In a multi-transaction financial services systems, a wide range of financial services is available through a variety of different delivery channels. Examples include a telephone call to a financial institution such as a Bank to inquire about a customer balance; a withdrawal of cash from an Automated Teller Machine (ATM), and use of electronic point of sale (POS) equipment. Each service is provided by service-specific hardware and software, i.e. a service-specific delivery channel, and each channel requires a specific connection to each possible host.
It is a disadvantage of such service-specific delivery channels that the services are difficult to expand or enhance, and difficult to maintain and control. It is a further disadvantage that potentially valuable information about customer activities and behavior is not easy to correlate across the channels, and much of the information can be regarded as "lost".
While the desirability of an integrated system having a number of different channels and capturing all customer information has been recognized for several years, no method of implementing such integration has previously been disclosed.